


More than a Name

by fayfayfay



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Industrial Revolution, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Past Lives, Alternative Universe - Civil War, M/M, Multi, Past Lives
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-08-10 07:20:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7835359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fayfayfay/pseuds/fayfayfay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Hamilton reaches the other side, Laurens isn’t there. Hamilton, having no other recourse, is born again. Hamilton and Laurens chase each other through their various lives, past and present.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Checking the Weather

**Author's Note:**

> Some themes, including slavery, poverty, and religion, may be objectionable to some. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, friends.

By the time they reach Big Meadows, Alex is seething.

This is supposed to be vacation. The long weekend had provided the perfect opportunity to camp in Shenandoah National Park, which is one of John’s favorite activities, one of the only family traditions he views with any fondness or nostalgia. Camping always seemed kind of ridiculous to Alex—lack of air conditioning and having to walk a mile for running water sounded more like “third world poverty” or perhaps “childhood” than “relaxation”. However, Alex has been working non-stop for like 17 years now and the idea of _quiet_ , including wind through the trees, cooking marshmallows and hot dogs over the fire, and sex with John in a tent under the stars is kind of appealing.

John promised that the trip from the neighborhood where they both live to the park entrance was maybe two hours—if they left the Capitol building early at 3, they could get to the car rental place and be setting up camp by 6, well before the sun went down. They’d pop open a beer, stoke a fire, and watch the sun set with the prospect of three nights of camping before they had to look at another email.

Then Alex got caught up and was late leaving, texted John, was met with radio silence which could only be interpreted as the weird sniveling anger that John conjured when he was jealous of Alex’s work, which was ridiculous, but Alex felt guilty anyway. Then they were late getting their car rental, and stuck waiting in the lobby, Alex fell into his normal habit of checking the weather patterns and filling John in on the chance of rain in every time interval of their trip, making him watch the radars and arguing over whether 40% constituted “reasonable likelihood”. John was pissed, and Alex said something about how John could’ve gotten the car himself if he was in such a hurry, and that combined with the maddeningly heavy traffic on 495 and 66 pretty much put the nail in the coffin of any idea Alex had about getting a blowjob behind the wheel, which felt like a bad omen, signaling that their vacation would be tense and sexless.

The snide little looks that John keeps shooting him are the reason he’d gone this long without establishing a real relationship with anyone. Alex managed to graduate from the foster care system with a college scholarship, a savings account, and citizenship, but John is so skilled at saying exactly the right thing to make him feel like he’s not come that far after all, like he’s still a barefoot little kid who isn’t used to the American food at his elementary school. Most of this has to do with John’s demeanor, the mannerisms that seem to be ingrained in anyone born with money, something that Alex cannot and will not learn.

Of course, he loves John. Long after they started dating, John would tell Alex that at first he’d felt invisible to Alex, because every time John saw him, he was yelling at somebody else, cutting down their opinions, screaming until he was red in the face. In reality, he’d mostly been trying to show off for John, who is altogether beautiful, talented, and attractively hot blooded. When they did get around to speaking, Alex fell fast and hard, finally matched with someone as passionate and willing to say so as he is—he’d sit across from John in the cafeteria and ask for his opinion on something, anything, as an excuse to count his eyelashes, watch his broad lips part around his spoon.

Thinking of the damn spoon, Alex feels something warm spread in his chest and he knows he shouldn’t be so angry. He could’ve cut work early. He could’ve been more patient with John’s impatience. They’ve been together for the better part of a year, and though Alex has yet to say it, he loves John with a force that is almost scary. John challenges him, inspires him, makes him feel hopeful and optimistic, and most importantly, as not-alone as he’s ever felt.

So when John says, “Wow,” and “oh my god” as they climb the ridge of the park and finally reach Skyline Drive, Alex takes his chances and slides a hand into John’s, who looks at their hands linked together for a moment before drawing his own back to pull out his phone. Apparently, they aren’t done fighting.

They reach the campground, check in, and find their space, a relatively private stretch of grass and gravel maybe 50 yards from where the rental car is parked. John starts unpacking and assembling their tent without a word to Alex, who figures he can at least start gathering kindling for a fire. He also figures he can do this with one hand while he holds a beer with the other; maybe that will calm his fraying nerves. In the fading twilight, he almost breaks his foot when he stumbles into a large metal box.

“What the fuck is this?!” he screams, doubly angry that the small armful of kindling he’d carefully scavenged had gone flying.

“Can you please be quiet? There are families with kids next to us,” John says, unnervingly calm, kneeling next to a stake. The tent has been perfectly assembled with the door flap open toward the firepit. Alex looks around indignantly. There are no children to be seen. 

John sighs, “It’s a bear box.”

“A what?”

“A bear box. You put your food in there so bears don’t smell it or whatever.”

“Bears? There are fucking _bears_ out here?’

John looks at Alex as if he’d finally surmised that the sky was blue. “Yeah. It’s one of the most famous features of the park.”

“That there are fucking maneating goddamn bears where you might try to sleep?”

Even in the dark, Alex can see John roll his eyes, exasperated. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Jesus, yeah, don’t worry about bears when you’re sleeping where they live. Will do.” Alex suddenly realizes how cold it’s gotten in the last half an hour—they’re about a thousand feet up from Washington DC without any of the blacktop effect keeping the heat in, and he’s starting to feel it. “Where did you put my bag?” he asks, and John shrugs, so Alex mumbles, “Great,” and heads back to the car where he probably left his backpack and extra shirts.

When Alex has finally found the shirt he was looking for--a thick, long-sleeved thermal he’d proudly purchased from Target specifically for this endeavor--John comes trundling out of the woods, looking perfectly at home in a crewneck sweatshirt and boots that probably cost somewhere between two and three hundred dollars. He looks like a model for REI or North Face or something, one of those outdoor brands that Alex has never even imagined being able to afford.

“I was going to go find the bathroom. Come with me?” he asks, and Alex nods, shrugging on his thermal shirt, but it’s still cold from being in his bag.

He starts to shiver a little bit, and John can’t hide the way he smiles. “You can’t be cold already.”

“Watch me,” Alex mumbles.

It’s an easy trip to the bathroom, which is blessedly heated. Alex splashes his face with water and uses the facilities, and John is waiting for him outside when he’s finished.

“Your shirt is on backward,” he says in greeting, and Alex rolls his eyes before starting on the trail back to the tent.

“Aren’t you going to fix it?” John asks, and Alex shrugs.

“No, that would mean taking it off.”

“But it’s backward. The tags are on the outside,” John says. John is a serious stickler for stupid little things like this, part of what makes him and his upbringing so intrinsically different from Alex’s, and Alex probably would have fixed the damn shirt already if he were talking to anyone else.

“It’s keeping me warm. That is what it’s made to do. It is perfectly functional,” Alex says, stepping onto the road that circles the campground. John sighs audibly, and Alex, not for the first time, envisions throwing an elbow back into his boyfriend’s face. He’d never do it, but it feels good to imagine.

“At least walk on the right side of the road,” John says, and Alex whips around.

“What? I am on the right!”

“No, you’re on the wrong side—when you’re on a bike, you’re supposed to go with traffic, but when you’re walking, you’re supposed to go against traffic so they can see you,” John gestures to an oncoming car, whose headlights skim his face briefly before it passes. “See?”

“The cars can move. They’re going like two miles an hour through here anyway,” Alex says, stubbornly.

“Alex, it’s literally the law.”

“John, the cars can _literally_ move. I’m going to walk wherever the hell I want to walk.”

John sighs, again, and there it is—that itching, gnawing feeling like Alex is the kid who is refusing to tie his shoes in gym class. Alex stomps ahead, blood beginning to simmer steadily, and he trudges one foot in front of the other, seething-- _If he could just—if he could just--_ and he realizes he has no idea what it is he wants John to do, except forgive him for all the stupid little things he does that make him imperfect. 

Alex suddenly realizes that he is very, very tired. More than tired, he’s exhausted in a bone-deep way, as if he’s been running for hundreds of miles and has no idea when he’ll be able to stop. He comes upon the campsite and notes with a heartsick regret that John has already set up the two bedrolls he’d bought for their trip, their pillows placed lovingly side-by-side.

John comes into the campsite just behind him, but he can’t face an apology right now, is just too fucking tired.

“I think I’m going to lay down for a minute.”

“Lie down,” John absentmindedly corrects.

“Sure,” Alex says, and kicks off his sneakers before settling into the tent. He doesn’t even realize he’s chosen John’s pillow, just allows his eyes to close and himself to sink into sleep.


	2. 1278 - 1311: Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience.

The first life that Alex lived was twenty years long, achingly brief, and mired in tragedy. He can’t see it clearly; it’s too far in the past, and his hold on this part of his mind is tenuous. He watches his soul flit briefly through bodies ridden with sickness or hunger or both: restless, hungry, and searching for something he can’t identify. He’s lived a dozen lives before he realizes that the missing piece is John. 

Relief comes to him sometime in the fourteenth century. His mother dies in childbirth, and with no father to ward him, he’s delivered to a small monastery. The monks thankfully have agreed to rear him despite a glaring lack of gold or property. He learns to read, write, keep bees, milk goats, observe the stars, brew beer, and plant herbs and vegetables. The monks there are content and extremely well-ordered, raising Hamilton to be lettered, disciplined, and fastidiously productive; this pleases his spirit, which has always delighted in fast paced productivity, perhaps a remnant of his decades-long search. Even at the age of seven, Hamilton is tasked with keeping a ledger of the monastery’s output, a pet project that he completes with no small amount of pride. 

The vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity provide a challenge for his wandering soul. Poverty is not difficult: the monastery provides for a life of constant labor, prayer, and reflection; luxury is scarce. Chastity, as well, is only a moderate issue. As he grows into a teenager, thin and gangly, it is difficult not to imagine a faceless form granting him pleasure in the night, and the dreams are nearly inescapable. Still, Hamilton finds relief in the exhausting hard labor of the farm and cellar, and if he wakes from a dream with damp bedclothes that must be washed immediately, it is a flaw of his body and not of his mind. The most trying vow is obedience--Hamilton is well-read and a quick study whose independence cannot be wrangled, and he frequently becomes polemical and haughty in his debate. A knowing look from the Prior can silence his mouth, but not the voice in his head begging him: _they’re wrong. Say something!_

As he grows older, Hamilton cannot help but look over the hills and long for a change in scenery, as if there is a string somewhere in the world that is pulling him by the chest. There are a few older monks who have told him he has been singled out by God for great works, and he wonders: Where will he go? What will he do? How can he use his brain, his greatest gift, to better serve the church that saved him? 

Hamilton is taken as a sort of apprentice to the Prior, who was there when Hamilton was delivered to them and has seen him develop into a young man, now 19 years of age. It is the Prior’s wisdom that places him in charge of the bees. 

Honey is an important output of their rather large monastery and Hamilton tries to contain his pride so as not to offend God (or the other monks). He’s always loved observing the bees: applying smoke to watch them drowse, slow, and then crawl inoffensively along the combs of honey. He will have other duties in the farm and the cellar, of course, but this will be his focus, and his expertise will be his gift to the church that reared him. 

The years pass amiably. The perpetual longing--the string pulling him into the world--gets alternately worse and better, depending on the season. He knows that his place is here, with the insects he’s spent a decade cultivating. The bees have produced marvelously and they have one of the largest productions in the country--he is passionate that every townsperson should have a candle in their home, and makes nearly a hundred per month. He began making mead years ago, and the townspeople as well as his fellow monks are ravenous for the mildly sweet, golden wine. 

Still, there are times that his anxiousness is so unpleasant as to keep him up at night, distract him from prayer, and set his heart and breath racing. The other men at Hamilton’s cell have noticed this, and it is common knowledge among them that Hamilton will occasionally be distracted, or even fall ill from troubled thoughts. 

Altogether, his life is comfortable. He loves his brothers, and his church, and if there is a piece missing, all the better to humble him before the glory of creation.

One afternoon, the Prior, who is now well past middle age, calls to him from the path that passes the hives. He is carrying a letter, and is accompanied by a youth unfamiliar to Hamilton. 

“Alexander,” the Prior says in greeting, “We have news from the Abbot at Paisley.” 

“Paisley?” Alexander parrots, “Forgive me, Prior, but what concern does so large and so far an abbey have with us?” 

Normally, the prior would smirk; he has always been taken by Hamilton’s bluntness. The fact that he doesn’t portends serious news from Paisley, the enormous Abbey outside of Glasgow that must house hundreds of men, young and old. 

“Alexander, the Abbey has been burned near to the ground. The English forces have destroyed it almost entirely.”

Alexander’s heart sinks. “May the Lord bless those lost and those who survive,” he says. 

“Indeed. Those who remain are busy building it back up. We must do what we can to help. This is John; he has come to stay with us until that time the Abbot is ready to receive him again.”

“Is he the only one?”

“There are half a dozen young men. Their presence is a balm to our cell. This letter says that John is interested in bees and is particularly industrious. He will work at your side.”

“Yes,” Hamilton says, and examines the youth more closely for the first time. He’s looking down, modest in a fitting way for monk, and cannot have past twenty years of age. His complexion is more brown than pink, and his brow is high and wide, matching his cheekbones. 

The Prior makes a sound of approval at Hamilton’s reception of John, and walks back up the path, presumably to see to the other monks of Paisley. 

“And how long had you been at Paisley?” Hamilton asks, and is nearly taken aback by the sudden way in which John raises his head, meeting Hamilton’s eyes in a steady, fierce stare. 

“Ten years,” he replies.

“Ten years?” Hamilton asks, surprised.  
“Since I was nine years of age. I have three older brothers,” John explains. This is common: if a family has ample land or nobility, the youngest sons will often join the church, leaving the eldest to the spoils of wealth. 

“We are fortunate to have you, John, though it is a terrible misfortune that befell our brothers at Paisley.”

“Yes,” John agrees, reticent, but the stare of bright, hazel eyes doesn’t leave Hamilton. 

For the first few months of his stay at their cell, John is quiet, morose, but obedient and faithful. He is a loud voice during song and attentive at their services. Best of all, despite his muted sadness, John is a wonder when working with bees. His touch is the gentlest Hamilton has seen; he is observant, efficient, and prompt in answering a request. 

As well, Hamilton cannot help but notice that John is beautiful. There are times that John meets his eyes and Hamilton realizes that he has been staring for an untold amount of time. Hamilton bristles and looks away, shrugging off his wonder as marveling at God’s creation. Surely he has outdone himself with John: a young man who is Hamilton’s height, but broad in the shoulder, with the most piercing eyes Hamilton has seen on any living man. His smile--when Hamilton can provoke it, and he tries often--is wide and deep, and his lips are broad and full, taking up half of his square face. 

The two sleep each night in a small room above the cellar. The room once held curing cheese, but the cheesemonger outpaced the available space and had to move. Now the room holds nothing but canning supplies, a broom, a wash basin, and a straw pallet. With so many new young men, the common sleeping area is full, and so John sleeps with Hamilton on his straw pallet, side by side, as brothers do. 

In these moments before sleep, they hear of each other’s lives. John knows that Hamilton has lived all of his 29 years here, whereas Hamilton knows that John has travelled all through the country, first with his noble family, then studying with many monasteries before making a home at Paisley. He knew many of his hundreds of brothers, had time to play games as he minded the stables, then less time as he was charged with caring for the bees. 

Hamilton treasures the instances when John falls asleep before the sun has set, and Hamilton can look upon his features with wonder. He tells himself that they are as brothers in this room, but knows, with some part of himself, that no brother should feel the way he does for John. 

One day, when John has been with them for nearly a year, Hamilton and John are leaving the compline service side by side. They have grown closer as John’s sadness alleviates, and Hamilton hopes that their work has helped set a routine that will heal the pain of his loss. 

“Did you notice the crack in young brother Paul’s voice?” Hamilton jokes, “I thought for a moment there was a duck behind his pew.”

John smiles for a second, and then something catches his eye. “Look,” he says, pointing. 

As the fall sets into their town, the sun sets earlier. Now, Hamilton and John have caught it perfectly: the pinks and oranges blaze across the sky, coloring the wheat fields and vegetable gardens. Hamilton looks for a moment, before looking back to where John’s eyes are reflecting the ardent colors. His breath catches high in his throat and he realizes that he has not felt the pull of foreign lands in a long, long time. John, as if feeling Hamilton’s gaze, turns back to him. Hamilton wants to look away, but can’t. 

That night, as they lie in bed, as brothers do, Hamilton cannot sleep. John’s back is to him, and the small movements he makes are like bits of hot coals under Hamilton’s skin, raising his temperature in bouts. His breath is deep and even, and Hamilton tries to let this soothe him, but he can’t. 

John suddenly turns to face him, his arm under his head, the opening in front of his tunic falling closed as he settles. He breathes in the deep, nasal breath of the recently roused. 

“Brother Alexander,” he says, his whisper crisp in the dark, “can you not sleep?”

Hamilton shakes his head. “I am afraid my thoughts will not allow me my rest.”

“I have heard about this,” John says, “from the others. Your thoughts are both a blessing and a burden.”

Hamilton hums his agreement, “Do not trouble yourself, John. My dreams will not be far behind yours.” Hamilton’s hand is so, so close to John’s face. He could brush the back of it against those perfect cheeks, feel the soft, sparse hair of his shaven face. 

John, as if reading his mind, reaches a broad hand to where Hamilton’s lay, and closes his own hand around Hamilton’s palm. If the sight of John’s movement in the dark was like hot coals, this touch is a low burning flame that warms Hamilton’s entire body. 

John’s hand doesn’t leave Hamilton’s as his eyes close and his breaths even out in the cadence of sleep. Hamilton’s thoughts stop. Sleep finds him, as well. 

John and Hamilton wake for the 2AM service, attend dutifully, and retreat to their room. Hamilton expects that John will fall asleep as on any other night, but instead he has turned to Hamilton, and, wordlessly, he takes Hamilton’s hand, as before, and returns to sleep. Hamilton, comforted and warm, follows. This continues for a week, and it’s the best part of Hamilton’s day. When the sun beats too hot upon his brow, or when an elder monk gives an undue opinion, Hamilton thinks of this: John’s soft, callused hand cradled in his, their breathing evening out in perfect rhythm, together. 

One morning, when Hamilton wakes before dawn, their hands have separated in the natural motion of sleep. John’s back is to him again, his waist creating a visible dip where Hamilton’s hand longs to rest. His heart sinks as he faces a sudden realization. 

He and John do not love one another as brothers do. This has been an obvious fact for weeks, perhaps in all the months since John has arrived here. Hamilton loves John like family, true, and like he loves the other men of the cell, true; he loves John the way God loves him. However, he also loves John with a deep, secret part of him that he promised to lock away long, long ago. He loves John in a way that is both forbidden and untenable, yet it’s the truest thing he has ever felt. 

Does John feel similarly? This thought occurs to Hamilton and is quickly ushered out of his mind: it is impossible; John only knows obedience and faith, and the grief of his lost home. John is unspoiled and Hamilton cannot ruin him. Hamilton rises from bed and his aim is certain: he will treat John as a superior should treat a young charge, as a master treats an apprentice, and he will not entertain any further thoughts. John deserves this, the best, from him. 

So, Hamilton carries on. He gives John direction in a brusque and efficient manner. When John speaks to him as a diversion, or with gossip, or any of their usual conversation, Hamilton hums with acceptance or does not reply at all. At services, Hamilton sits in nearly full pews where John cannot follow--even the touch of his tunic against Hamilton’s would divert Hamilton’s goal, would crumble his resolve completely. Hamilton chooses not to look at John during meals, and that night, when John moves to take his hand, Hamilton turns away. He closes his eyes tightly, and tries not to imagine the confused disappointment on John’s face.

This continues for three days before John acknowledges it. It is night, well past sunset, and the two of them lie side by side, as brothers do. John has not tried to take Hamilton’s hand in their usual routine.

“Is something troubling you, Alexander?” he asks, his whisper cutting through the dark. The nights have started to take on the damp chill of fall. 

“No, John,” he lies. 

John does not reply. 

For another week, Alexander tries not to see John. He tries not to see his fallen features, his confusion, the slight weariness that sags in his shoulders. He tries to harden his resolve, to ignore that dark, secret part of him that whines for recognition when he thinks of John. He succeeds, mostly. 

He is at rest, turned away from John, as he must, when he wakes. 

At first, he can’t discern what woke him--he is not hungry, or thirsty, or cold. Then, he hears it: a small thing, a tiny whimper. As much as he’d lost, John had never wept when he arrived, and so Hamilton had thought him mostly stoic and contemplative. Now, hearing renewed evidence of John’s misery, Hamilton’s heart is broken. Newly awake, he does not remember his resolve, and turns to face the boy. 

“John, my friend,” he says, “you are hurt.” 

John sniffs, quietly, and shakes his head, “I did not mean to wake you.” There is a tear track, visible on his face, which has traces from his eye to the pallet under him. Another tear takes its place, retraces the steps of its brother. 

“It is no matter,” Hamilton says. “You remember your brothers... Your lost home.” 

To Hamilton’s surprise, John shakes his head. “No, Alexander, that trouble left me--near on a year ago, now.” 

“My dear friend,” Hamilton knows his concern is evident on his brow. “What could be your trouble, then?” 

Hamilton is leaning on one elbow, and John looks up at him from where he lay, unmoved, on the pallet. His curls are long, running apace with Hamilton’s own long hair, his one vanity. 

“I was alone, for so long,” he breathes. “I had no one but God. Then, the fire.” 

John covers his face with his hands briefly, drying it. His eyes are still wet when he props himself on his own elbow, mirroring Hamilton. 

“The road was so long. As we went north, I thought I would only ever know cold, again. Then, you, Alexander. You, and the others, and the bees. You ask if I mourn for my home; how could I, when my home is here? My home is here, with you.” 

Hamilton looks on, stunned. John is speaking with a practiced surety. He must have known he was going to say this. 

“And now, I have done something,” he says, “I have done something to make myself detestable and I’m afraid our friendship is gone.” 

Hamilton shakes his head with ardour; he cannot stand what John is implying. “You have done nothing, John.” 

“I must have. It is the only solution. I thought, for a moment, you had suffered something personal. However, you did not confide in me and your contempt for me only grew. I try to resist vanity, as any man, but cannot help but notice that you no longer look at me, or speak to me as brothers do.”

John swallows, and Hamilton still shakes his head, weakly. 

“Alexander, you no longer…” he pauses, as if searching for words. “You no longer touch me.”

A brief, scorching fire washes over Hamilton, and he knows now there is no hiding himself from John any longer. With John’s words, the dark, secret part of Hamilton that longs for him fills up the remaining space in Hamilton; it becomes him, perhaps always was him. “John--”

“Please, like anything else, I,” he swallows, “I long for the touch of your hand.” 

Hamilton closes his eyes and exhales. There is nothing he can do now. 

“John,” he says, eyes still closed--he can’t look at John, knows that if he does, something will be lost forever and there will be no retreat. “Nothing you say or do could ever cast me away from you. You have done something irreparable in that you have caused me to love you. You have to understand--I would follow you anywhere you go: to Spain, or Arabia, or China. I cannot part myself from you, even if I wished it. I love you too strongly for that love to even be named.”

John sounds even more confused, “Then why? Why would you follow me to China but not sit with me at meals?”

Hamilton opens his eyes, “I cannot do this to you. I cannot show you the true scope of my affections; it is not prudent or wise for a monk to do--”

“Alexander, please,” John says, and the tears have renewed, are threatening to spill from his eyes. “All of my short life, I have felt something pushing me, toward the north, away from everything I have loved. Then, I arrived here, and that push vanished. I know now that push was leading me to you.”

John takes Hamilton’s hand, and the heat of it is scorching, like a brand. 

“Whatever affection you have for me, Alexander, I would beg for you to show it. Now that I know what it is to not be alone, I must feel it always. Please, Alexander.” 

Hearing these words opens a gate somewhere in Hamilton, and the secret part of him that knows only love for John is suddenly loose upon the whole of creation. Hamilton’s hands find either side of John’s face as they lie facing one another. He presses his forehead lovingly to John’s and swallows and John’s hands find his wrists. 

“Please, John. This is the extent of the affection my vows permit,” he says, staring intently at John’s eyes so that he might communicate all he is feeling without speaking. A tear from John’s eye finds Hamilton’s hand. 

John’s body wriggles toward his under the woolen blanket they share. Suddenly, the bare press of his knee makes itself known against Hamtilon’s. The smooth skin, the soft hair, the sensation of it makes Hamilton wordless, and his eyes squeeze together tightly. 

“Alexander?” he asks.

“Yes?”

“Forgive me,” John says, and tilts his face to cover Hamilton’s own, touching his broad, full lips to Hamilton’s narrow mouth. It is everything Hamilton wished for it to be. He has never been more thankful to have his own quarters as a moan wrenches forward from his mouth; John follows in a helpless, voiceless cry. As their faces tilt together, kissing again, and again, Hamilton’s hands find the back of John’s neck, and his shoulders. Only then does he permit himself to touch the waist he has dreamed about, and his hand fits there like John’s waist was carved especially for him. All of the guilt that has wracked Alexander for weeks disappears, as it is evident that he and John share a love that is sanctioned by God. 

He is achingly aware that all of the blood in his body has pooled in his cock, making it hard and long enough to almost touch John. The fire that touches him whenever John looks at him has centered itself there, makes him long for more of John’s touches, everywhere he can touch. John’s hands touch his waist in turn, finding their way under the coarse wool of his sleeping tunic and laying on his waist and stomach. 

Then, as if by chance of circumstance, they shuffle closer and are touching from chest to feet, aligning perfectly. They are the same height. 

“Alexander,” John breathes; he is practically panting and gasping with his pleasure. 

“I have wanted this for so long,” Hamilton breathes, “I’ve waited for you for so long.” 

John nods, his face seeking the comfort of Hamilton’s neck as his body starts to jerk almost unwittingly. “Alexander,” he breathes, as his hips press against Hamilton’s, who begins to reciprocate, moving as he grasps onto John’s waist and hips, feels the fire build. 

John releases first, and Hamilton feels the heat of it in spite of the tunics still between them. John’s mouth falls open as if in shock, and he presses his open jaw against Hamilton’s neck, still grasping at him as if he’s in danger of falling into something deep and irretrievable. He moans in several loud stutters, almost crying, and Hamilton remembers the heat of his tears against his hands. 

Then Hamilton can’t stop saying John’s name, and he knew this would happen but he can’t have anticipated this feeling: full bodily release in the arms of a man he loves more than breathing. He bites his lip to keep from screaming John’s name toward the heavens. 

The two don’t look at each other for several moments afterward. Their bond feels too delicate to acknowledge; now that they’ve brought it into the world, it may snap in the cold air, faced with brutal reality. 

When John does look up, he’s smiling, and so Hamilton can’t help but smile, too. 

“I’m afraid I’ve made a mess of our habits,” John says, and Hamilton hums in agreement. 

“Luckily we have two. I would say that we should wash them, but I already know I’m going to… I’m going to want more of this.” 

John smiles, brilliant as a galaxy, and Hamilton knows he hasn’t overstepped his bounds. “Perhaps… later, perhaps I could… taste you? With my mouth?” 

As the meaning of what John has said sinks into Hamilton’s mind, he breathes in a sudden, deep breath. “Is that… is that done?” he asks, unable to conjure any other question. John has turned red and is looking down at where his hands pick the threads of their blanket. 

“I heard… there were a lot of things, a lot of acts that the other boys would perform on one another… at Paisley.”

“Someone did this to you?” Hamilton’s heart falls at the idea that anyone has ever touched John the way he has. Though he knows human beings the worldover come together like this all of the time, he wants this to be something only they’ve shared, some secret experience only a few are privy to. 

John’s blush deepens and he mercifully shakes his head. “No, no, they only spoke of it. I never saw it done.” 

Hamilton breathes a sigh of relief. He’s never known this side of himself: covetous, jealous. As he counts John’s eyelashes in the dark, he can’t help but hope that he will be the only one to touch John, now, in the future, and always. 

 

The guilt over their mutual arrangement rears its head and fades with time. The two of them commit themselves wholly to poverty and obedience, cutting their hair and working together as the fiercest, smartest, and most competent of teams. John even abstains from wine for a while, but that doesn’t last long, especially as the mead they make improves with quality and time. In all, their compensation for the private part of their relationship is unnecessary. They serve well, in any way.

They sleep hand in hand, always comforting one another with their mouths, sometimes lying next to one another, skin to skin, just to revel in the feeling of their bodies aligning perfectly, just as the first time. Hamilton learns the pleasure of John’s body, and John learns his, especially when they discover what can be done with the right amount of oil, and he smiles with a secret pleasure watching John walk about the grounds still with part of Hamilton in him. He delights in making him wet inside, and lives for the nights when they are able to come together again, and again, and again. 

They keep their room above the cellar, even when Hamilton is offered private quarters reserved for more senior members of the monastery. He couldn’t imagine sleeping anywhere but the bed where John first touched lips to his, where they confessed their love, the most powerful gift from God that he has received. 

They live together like this, continuing to be productive and happy for several years. However, the men of the priory don’t hear word of Edward II’s invasion until he has almost reached the monastery, and by then it is far too late. When Edward’s men approach in a loud stampede, Hamilton does not run for safety, but instead for John. The two meet for a brief moment, and, staring intently into each other’s eyes, begin to pray. Hamilton prays that wherever he should go, whatever is beyond, that John may be there, too. He will search for years, in snow, through trees, mountains, or across oceans. He prays that they will find one another. Then, Edward’s men are upon them.


	3. Interlude

After that, the centuries pass with difficulty. Hamilton is often poor and illiterate, but most of his lives are streaked with the common thread of his ceaseless ambition. He is most often orphaned--if not actually, then emotionally. He spends a lot of time looking for something he cannot articulate, and only some of the time does he find it. 

Half of the time they die before the age of 30, burning too brightly and disintegrating before one another's eyes. Most of the time, fate is merciful to John. Most of the time, he goes first. The lives in which neither of them perish early are precious and they find themselves holding tightly to every year, a nameless worry pressing them, staving off a force that feels too big to control. 

There are some lives in which Alexander is landlocked but never stops smelling of the ocean, salted and crisp. Even in the lives that do not grant John wealth or security, he is outlandishly rebellious, and cannot stand still for want of satisfaction. 

There are times when a life of study or political passion leave them adrift from one another: Hamilton studies under Descartes while John helps the Irish rebel. The passion of a missing piece helps them to help revolutionize the world. 

However, the universe, or God, or whatever, seems to have a pressing need to throw them in the face of war and revolution, and they are on the frontlines of major conflicts the worldover; if there is a fight, the two of them are eager to fight it. That is most often how they find one another--wrapped up in a storm of action neither one really has a total grasp of, hungry to win anyway. 

Their spirits become trained to this kind of conflict. They play knights, scholars, and politicians. It’s easier if they are born of the opposite sex, but that doesn’t happen often; it’s as if they need that one extra hurdle, to make it all the more worth it. 

They revolt in the name of peasants in England, meeting when Hamilton outs John as a noble spy, who then converts to the cause. When Sundiata Keita conquers Tekrur on the Senegal river in the name of the Mali Empire, Hamilton is a sworn scribe who finds John selling textiles in a marketplace and impregnates him (a her, this time). 

The tables turn when the Spanish conquer the Aztec Empire; John is a conquistador’s son who takes Hamilton, a native, as his lover and saves him from the forced labor and persecution that Hamilton’s family ultimately dies of. Hamilton watches his own resentment clash with his soul-deep love for John, and their ultimate death of one another’s foreign illnesses. 

Of all of their lives, none of them feel as unfair as the one that begins in the mid-eighteenth century. This life is ravaged by storms: one destroys his town on his native island; one besets the ship that takes him to America. Hamilton overcomes orphanhood, sickness, poverty, and lack of formal education to become one of the foremost scholars of the newfound colonies--he does everything right, as he feels almost bound to do: he gains entrance to a college, publishes every thought in his mind, is hired by the commander-in-chief of the nation’s rebellion and secures a loving, high society bride who promises to give him many children. All while developing the perfect frame for his life, Alexander meets John, and the two, as in every life, are immediately drawn to one another. John is the son of a statesman, but ambitious in his own right, revolutionizing the way the army recruits, promising to follow by revolutionizing the way the nation regards black Americans. Alexander loves him fiercely, and, securing the approval of his wife, looks forward to spending decades at his side, forming a nation from scratch with his most perfect equal, his confidante, his soulmate. He writes to John, who has busied himself in the Carolinas--

_Quit your sword my friend, put on the toga, come to Congress. We know each others sentiments, our views are the same: we have fought side by side to make America free, let us hand in hand struggle to make her happy…_

The two of them never know the years of peace Hamilton had spent so long envisioning. Shortly after Hamilton’s first son is born, John is killed in a minor shootout. His soul departs, born into a body which never knows Hamilton’s.


	4. 1804 - 1819: To Breathe Common Air

Hamilton, in the next life, is born into filth and an overwhelming, colorless stench. He never finds out what his mother does for a living, just knows that she leaves before dawn and he is to be quiet until she returns home after dusk. Hamilton cannot actually do this, so he has taken to sneaking out of the house during the day and returning through the window as the sun sets. Hamilton’s mother is a young woman named Margaret, whose hands are always rough and swollen, whose red hair sticks to her forehead. He tries to help with cooking, but he’s always tried a lot of things, was never much good at any of them.

“Be still,” his mother admonishes, again and again, but that is actually not possible. Hamilton is climbing, running, bursting. He grasps the two sides of the only chair in their room and climbs up the back of it. Afterward, there are no chairs in their room.

His mother often walks apace, holding her lower back, her face lined with worry. She is only 23 years old when she begins murmuring to herself words that Hamilton cannot understand, though he always knows “pay,” and “money”.

When Hamilton is about ten, he creeps into their apartment through the window before sunset, making sure to stoke a fire and boil water. His mother doesn’t return.

He waits days, eating through all of the food in their room, and when the landlady pounds on their door, looking for money, he panics and leaves through the window.

Hamilton has been living on the street for two years, now. He could get a job. His hands are small enough to fit in between the workings of enormous machines, his tiny spine could hunch to fit him into the smallest enclave. Any foreman would love to have someone of Hamilton’s size to send between the bars, but Hamilton cannot be inside for a sustained length of time without hyperventilating and sensing that he is about to die, without envisioning his mother trapped in some nebulous otherworld, unable to find her way back to him.

“AYE! You! Yes, you!”

The other boy’s face is spattered with freckles, or dirt, or oil, or all three.

“Where are your parents?” the boy asks. Hamilton shrugs. The boy looks him up and down and asks, “D’you want to help me with something? There’ll be something in it for you.”

Hamilton nods and listens to the boy’s plan to steal biscuits from the inn half a mile away. Considering the plan sound, he follows the boy until they are a block away and then they split, the boy creating a diversion while Hamilton slips the busted lock on the door the boy had told him about.

When they meet at the corner of the next street up, the boy’s eyes are wide. “That’s a good job!” he says, laughing.

“Thank you,” he says to the boy, whose curls are piecey and welded together with engine grease. “What’s your name?”

“What’s _your_ name?” the boy asks, petulantly, and Hamilton is surprised at himself when he answers, when the other boy responds, a sort of truce sketched out between them.

“Do you want to come with me? I know somewheres we can eat these,” the boy says, and Hamilton does not nod his ascent, but follows anyhow.

 

By day, the boys flit along crowded alleys in the city where they first met. They steal food, climb the sides of tall buildings, inspect rats and birds in the streets. They are bundling together when the winter comes, sleeping in churches on the roughhewn red carpet, then thankful for the warmth of spring.

At first, they don’t talk about their parents, neither wanting to cry in front of each other. There are some days they don’t talk at all, content to nod and walk alongside one another, content in the family they’ve created. Then, one humid spring morning, Hamilton rounds a corner to find his only friend crouched over a thin orange tabby cat.

The boy’s face is frozen in a kind of curious wonder, watching the animal breathe quickly, shallowly, its matted fur sticking together despite the manic rise and fall of its chest. Hamilton is unnoticed as he approaches, and his friend is holding his small, fine-boned hands in front of him, not quite touching the animal. The cat’s eyes are wide and blinking, until they’re not.

The boys crouch together in silence. Hamilton looks at his friend and notices a deep well of water forming, caught by long eyelashes. Hamilton knows now, looking on, that his friend is John.

“We can’t save anything, can we?” John says, and Hamilton is quiet. It figures, that after a lifetime of writing, pamphlets, essays, letters, Hamilton will have used up all of his words.

John tells Hamilton about his father after that, about the man who drank all of their money away, about his death in a bar fight, about watching the life drain from his eyes like ale in a gutter. John’s father had friends who bought him beer afterward, but no one who cared to buy him bread. Hamilton wonders aloud where his own mother might be, but he already knows. He just wants to feel this camaraderie with John, feels that John deserves that.

After that, they’re closer, thicker than blood, and Hamilton is more serious about protecting John, about making sure that he has enough to eat, and that he doesn’t see dying things on the side of the road any longer. They work for an older man who no longer has the eyesight to tend to his machines, and they rent a room in a tavern, old enough now not to be delivered to the steps of an orphanage. The mattress is straw, and the single candle in the corner reminds Hamilton of his mother’s room, how she would cup the air around the candle before blowing it out.

They’re both about fifteen years old, now, and Hamilton is too tall and gangling; his knees won’t keep up with the growth, all of his joints aching constantly. John is shorter, but underfed, and Hamilton can’t stop thinking of the lines on his friend’s body, where the ropey muscles connect under his freckled skin. Sometimes he dreams of the corners of John’s cracked lips, or the shadows of his shoulderblades in the candle light, when they take off their clothes and retire to bed together. Hamilton loves nothing more than these moments, when he and John crowd together on the straw mattress, breathing common air, closing their eyes together. His hands ache to touch John in a way that he has never felt before and he must stop himself from rubbing John’s side in the dark—he still imagines feeling the dip in John’s waist, no one here to see them, and it fills him with a longing he can’t name. Hamilton doesn’t know how to write, but sometimes he wishes he could, so that he could write their names together, show someone proof that they lived here, that they were meant to share this space, meant to breathe common air.

John kisses him first. Hamilton shakes as the tension ripples off of his body in waves, the relief of finally knowing John’s mouth pushing away everything that was there before: shame, doubt, fear. “Oh, God, oh God,” he can’t stop saying, even as John shushes him, “Oh, God—please, John, please, yes, I want you so much.”

“You never stop talking,” John says, and it sounds like an admonishment, but Hamilton knows it’s an order: “Never stop.” He kisses Hamilton’s mouth, first with closed lips, and then open, so open and raw to the sensation of Hamilton’s tongue and lips. Their bodies, unclothed but for their long undershirts, line up and surge forward, bones pressing together, hips seeking the perfect alignment, knees cradling knees.

“My John,” Hamilton breathes into John’s curls, close-cropped for safety. In his stomach is the same warm feeling he’s known for months now, the want that comes from seeing John every day, noticing the lines around his eyes, the corners of his mouth, the solid frame of his body. His hands cup John’s shoulders and his hips seek the friction of John’s erection. He doesn’t want to ever stop, wants to live like this forever, but he knows that he’ll end soon, and rolls John’s body under him, tucking his face into John’s neck and rolling his hips into John’s. As their undershirts ride up, the warm, damp skin of John’s thighs opens and closes, trapping Hamilton’s erection between them. John moans in a choked, gasping way into Hamilton’s ears as his cock spurts hot onto Hamilton’s belly, and Hamilton spills between John’s legs, sighing, “Yes, God, yes, yes.”

John smiles, his teeth shining in the starlight that comes through the window, and Hamilton wishes they hadn’t already blown out the candle.

“You would make for a pretty wife,” Hamilton says, brushing the short curls from John’s forehead. “Would you have me as your husband?”

“I know no cooking,” John says, laughter welling in his chest. “And I will birth no children.”

“Not to worry,” Hamilton says, wrapping his hand around John’s wrist and kissing the outline of his bones, “This will serve.”

Soon after that, the two of them wake with sore throats. They don’t know the meaning of the word “Doctor” and the consumption gets worse with every passing day, each of them desperately mopping sweat from the other’s forehead, each of them begging the other to eat. By the time the landlady bangs on the door, looking for money, their heartbeats have long since faded. The common air they had shared was not enough to save them, and Hamilton never writes a word. They never know the luxury of righteousness.


	5. 1819 - 1839: Like a Person

In Hamilton’s next life, he, again, is an immigrant, but he is not willing.

He often thinks of the day he was captured. He and his mother were sailing swiftly by canoe down the river; he was spotting orange fish and the indulgent smile she gave him was that of a mother whose son would soon be captured by puberty: foul moods, insistent attitudes, an overwhelming interest in what others thought of him. In those moments, though, he was just a boy, only interested in fish, and his hungry belly, and how soon the two would meet in mutual satisfaction. His mother’s smile was bright white against her beautiful, dark skin in the surrounding shadows of the trees.

His mother did not make the journey. Men and women were kept separate, and Hamilton is tall enough to be a man. He did not see his mother die, and in retrospect, is grateful for the fact. He would not have kept himself from diving overboard to join her. With nothing in this world but her, what would have stopped him?

The doctor at the port is pitiless and foul, jamming his hands in Hamilton’s mouth to examine his teeth, yelling at Hamilton as if he understands. There is a man in a brimmed hat who signs papers. He is led by the wrist to a wagon. He can hear his own heart beat in his ears and he is paralyzed with fear, not realizing he is crying until beads of water strike his fists and wash a clear line through the grime that has collected on his skin.

 

It is months before he sees a smiling face. As he grapples with the complexity of a new language, quickly absorbing it, the man who bought him, Mr. Whitmore, has decided that he is young and sharp enough to learn a skill and sets him to work with the horsemaster, an old man named Cal with a lined face and cataracts clouding his pale eyes.

“These two is sisters,” he says, patting the flanks of a brown and white pair, “and this is Lottie, old and fierce,” he laughs. “The young mistress likes her, visits her every morning,” and Hamilton hardly hears him. The ringing in his ears hasn’t left since the port, perpetual terror drawing him up from the inside like a puppet string.

He sleeps in a loft above the stable, the narrow straw mattress making him lonely in a way he doesn’t have the words to describe. He is acutely aware that he is alone, and cannot fathom the endlessness of his solitude.

Hamilton wakes in the morning to a soft clicking, a “there, there”, and the sound of a hard fruit being greedily mouthed by a horse below. He rises in time to see a head of brown curls retreating from the stables, a girl clothed in boys’ riding pants, freckled hands closing the stable doors.

Hamilton doesn’t know his birthday, but knows that his 13th summer has passed. He and the master’s daughter share an age, and she invites all of those her father has enslaved to celebrate, calling them “Mister” and “Miss”, cutting thin slices of heavy cake for each of them as her mother laughs at her boundless and misguided generosity. As Hamilton collects his slice of cake, her freckled fingers touch his and the bright smile she gives him feels like his and his alone. He tells himself he’s imagined the way her hands lingered, the way her eyes stayed trained on his. She does that for everybody, he reasons. “The young mistress” has a kind soul.

By day, the stables are hot and musty, and Hamilton prides himself on ridding them of spare waste so as to keep his own sleeping quarters comfortable and clean. Cal walks with a greater hunch every day, but his mind is sharp, and he fills in Hamilton on the latest gossip: The mistress has gotten fat, the master spends too much of his time at the neighbor’s house three miles away, President Andrew Jackson’s vice president is secretly a devil who divines his powers from the underworld. He knows about his fellow slaves, too—who is sharing a secret look, who is memorizing the bible stories; he knows the songs about the overseer and the rhymes about fat Tom, the neighbor who never fails to visit for Sunday dinner, and who never fails to visit the kitchen and with it, Ms. Little, the head cook.

Years pass. Hamilton, who never had anyone but his mother, who has felt lost and alone for far longer than that moment he was captured, knows some comfort in the acceptance he’s found among the others who are enslaved. Headstrong, he bristles with resentment at any rebuke he suffers, but mostly he is obsessed with proving himself. He learns each of his duties with a fastidiousness that impresses Cal, and after that, sets to memorizing parts of the Bible, the only source of stories that he and the others are privy to. When Scott, the tall, old man who leads their Sunday services, says a line particularly melancholy, or beautiful, or optimistic, Hamilton repeats it in his head until it’s cemented there, kept forever in a special room he can open any time he likes.

They take their meals together, he and Cal, save for on Sundays, when they and the others come together to the common tract of ground between their homes and split tough cuts of meat with succulent gravies, thick, boiled-down fruit jams decorating the plate and balancing the rich, fatty meats. Hamilton eats on Sundays, marveling at the difference between this food and the orange fish he caught with his mother, what must’ve been years ago now. Cal passes away in his sleep on Saturday night, and Hamilton foolishly regrets that he couldn’t have enjoyed one more Sunday dinner.

“Let’s have a small prayer for our brother Cal, he who may rest in peace. And let us thank the young mistress for the fruit which is part of our Sunday meal,” Ms. Little says, and there are groans and murmurs of assent.

Hamilton allows his eyes to fall shut, intending to rest his mind, which seems to always be moving despite his frequent admonition for it to stop. Instead, he sees the young mistress’s freckles, covering the tops of his hands, trailing along her fingers and under the sleeves of her riding blouse. He is seventeen now, and has never felt more desperate to be seen, and heard, and touched. He clamps down on these emotions the best he can.

Hamilton wakes early the next morning to a slam of the stable door. He thinks nothing of it (the young mistress is often visiting her horse in the early morning, prefers not to be disturbed), until he hears the creak of footfalls on the ladder that leads to his loft.

Hamilton scrambles to cover himself as a head of dust-colored curls peaks over the edge of the loft. The young mistress heaves herself to full height, dusting the debris from her men’s riding pants. Hamilton balks.

“What is the—“

“Are you taking good care of my Lottie?” she spits, arms crossed, eyes fierce and wide for this time of morning.

“I apologize, young mistress, what—“

“Are you taking good care of my Lottie?” she repeats. “Cal gave her a special diet every day of her life until he passed and she never looked near as bad as she do now, god damn intolerable! Her hair is damn near fallin’ out!”

Hamilton wasn’t aware that women were able to speak as such and shakes his head violently.

“Now I am not one to believe in corporal punishment nor do I feel compelled to pile threats upon your person, I am merely asking—“

“Lottie receives the same diet as every other horse, as I have not been made aware of any special dietary circumstance,” Hamilton explains, carefully, “Cal hadn’t the chance to divulge his special mixture for your girl, Lottie, before his passing. I beg of your forgiveness and ask your mercy in punishing me for my oversight.”

The young woman pauses, visibly, and takes a heavy breath, placing her hands on her hips and sighing outwardly. “That won’t be necessary, Alex,” she says.

“Thank you, Miss,” Hamilton breathes. “If you would give me a moment to clothe myself, I will investigate the matter of Lottie’s feed.”

The young woman looks at him curiously and Hamilton knows that incredulous, penetrating stare from somewhere he can’t place. “Alright,” she says, and descends the ladder.

The two of them find, in a barrel in the corner, a special mixture of feed about which Cal had either forgotten or deliberately omitted from Hamilton’s training.

“He can’t have plum forgotten to tell you,” the girl says.

“Perhaps he wanted for it to be a special secret between the two of you, Miss,” Hamilton says, and there is a long pause. Hamilton forces himself not to look at the girl when he sees that her eyes are too bright not to be filled with tears.

“Men are jealous of their secrets,” the girl says, and, as if to explain herself, “Mostly, I’ve found, that men are the same.”

Hamilton nods, choosing not to deliberate the gravity of the statement for now.

 

Something wordless having passed between them, Hamilton and the girl begin spending a few minutes with one another every day, the girl making sure to berate Hamilton about the condition of her horse, Hamilton being sure to notify the girl of each development he can note. Given that she is one of his only regular acquaintances, he learns quickly the nuances of her personality. She is gracious, but firm, and has a heart for raising things up—it is mostly her requests that make the farm so full of animal and plant life. Her mother would prefer that she stay inside, refine her needlework, and try to do something about the frizzy mass of humid curls atop her head, but the girl can’t fathom life indoors.

Hamilton can tell that she is learning who he is, as well, not just from stories she solicits from him while outfitting her horse. Sometimes when she looks at him, he knows she is seeing something that no one else can see, that no one else has seen since the day he was separated from his mother, and he has to look away in order to save both of them from what they know has already begun to happen.

“Do you ever think of Cal?” she asks one morning, over a year after Cal’s passing.

“Every day, Miss,” he says, not realizing until after he’d said it that it was true.

“Me too,” she says, and it’s quiet. “I’d never known anyone who died, before.”

Hamilton nods with understanding, but his hands slow as he imagines darting orange fish, a smile he’ll never forget, even as the memory of her eyes, her hands, and her comforting touch fade.

“I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have said that. That was selfish of me,” she says, quickly looking away. “I mean, your mother,” she amends, quietly, as a blush wells up on her cheeks. The connection that has been building between them, thread by thread, the one that began before they were even born, strengthens just a little bit more.

The girl, John, puts her horse through its paces every morning, training her, keeping her healthy and strong, but even John’s caring attention cannot fight the fading force of time. Lottie had been her mother’s horse, and is approaching thirty as the girl comes of age. As the horse sickens, it becomes difficult for her to stand, and she eats less and less of Cal’s fortified mixture.

The girl’s father, Mr. Whitmore, decides what has to be done. He doesn’t want his daughter present but the girl refuses to make herself scarce, selflessly insisting that she has a right to be there for the horse’s final moments. Mr. Whitmore, whose heart is soft for his only daughter, allows this, but compromises that she is to stay in the stable with Hamilton when he pulls the trigger.

John’s face is splotchy red under her freckles when she comes into the stables, where Hamilton is waiting. She’s wearing her riding pants and blouse, though Lottie has not been well enough to ride for weeks. Mr. Whitmore has led Lottie, who walks slowly and feebly, out of the stable.

When Mr. Whitmore leaves, John throws herself into Alex, who, with shock and not a small amount of fear, receives her. Her nose presses into the collar of his shirt and he feels dizzy as her wet, warm tears touch his neck. Alex overcomes his shock quickly and wraps his arms around her shoulders, which are broad for a young woman’s, but seem narrow as they shake under his hands.

She’s waiting for the sound, he thinks. That’s why she isn’t saying anything. He can imagine Mr. Whitmore squaring up, readying his nerves to shoot an animal he’s known for decades.

He mines the room in his head for something beautiful and comforting to say about death. He comes up short. Instead, he touches the ends of her dry, springy hair and tightens one arm around her body.

“Everyone shall sit under their own vine, and their own fig tree,” he says, “and no one shall make them afraid.”

John laughs, a sad, wet sound. “Even horses?” she asks. He doesn’t get the chance to respond; a resounding _boom_ takes their ears and John rushes from his arms and toward the grove where Lottie lay. Hamilton gives her privacy. Mr. Whitmore wipes his face with a handkerchief, carrying his pistol mournfully back to the house.

Before dawn the next morning, John comes to the stables and begins doing Hamilton’s work for him. She feeds each of the dozen horses her family owns, brushes them, and even helps Hamilton rake their stalls, despite his protests. Within a couple of hours, Hamilton is done for the day. He notices John is wearing her riding breeches, same as yesterday. He wonders if she’s changed, if she’s slept.

“Come with me, now,” she says, and when Hamilton looks at her, confused, she says, “We are going to catch crawdads in the swamp. Daddy said you can help me.”

“Miss, I don’t know what that is,” he says, choosing to offer honesty instead of the confusion that wells up in him.

“It’s easy, and you’re smart, so it will be fun,” she insists, picking up a small rucksack she’d left by the door. He can’t help but notice that she isn’t smiling when she says “fun”.

The creek is a good mile and a half away from the stables, and John is silent, her eyes squinting. It’s May and the short spring has given way to an early summer, so though it’s barely ten in the morning, the sun is in full flux, beating on Alex’s shoulders and making the mass of John’s hair resemble an errant dust cloud.

Alex doesn’t ask what direction they’re going, just follows and watches John’s determined stride. He’d offered to carry her rucksack, but she’d just jerked away, insisting that she could do it. Neither of them wears shoes and the dust settles between Alex’s toes; the heat spreads out the bones of his feet.

They reach the creek, where the water is slow-moving and the trees create a false darkness, perpetual shade. John seems to know everything there is to know about crawfish, and the tired way she recites their sleeping and eating habits is almost frightening, as if she’s walking and talking on muscle memory alone.

They set traps of net, using bits of gristle that John had apparently been saving, or having Ms. Little save. They spend most of the day trudging in the creek, spying little clumps of crayfish, making sure to amass pounds of them before returning home on tired feet.

The days continue as such, John arriving at the stables in the morning and announcing her plans for the day before Hamilton volunteers to accompany her. They prune trees, catch more crayfish, and find more aquatic life for John to sketch in a wide, leatherbound book as Hamilton looks on. Hamilton opens the room in his mind and asks John where the sentences come from, and John can’t place most of them, but finds a few of the lines in her bible, which she takes with her sometimes, for his sake. They spend six days of the week with one another, and on one Sunday, Ms. Little dips low to warn him, a hot breath in his ear.

“Be careful, now,” is all she says, but they both know. Almost no one is suspicious of their time together, including Mr. Whitmore, who continues to sanction Hamilton’s absence from his post according to his daughter’s wishes. Ms. Little, who hears and knows everything, must have gathered the evidence. The bond between he and John grows, a tireless bundle of nerves that winds tighter with every day.

Eventually, Mr. and Mrs. Whitmore are less forgiving of John’s messy, curious, and, frankly, unladylike behavior. She is allowed less hours in the day to explore and groom and observe the grounds, and is called in early at times to practice the piano, or her handwriting. Sometimes, Hamilton will see John on the porch in a high necked dress, her hair bundled into a style that attempts to smooth the wild nature of it. He wants to laugh at this, a little bit, knowing what her private thoughts are on this kind of finery.

Hamilton returns to a more regular schedule, still seeing John every day, but for less time. He is comfortable with this, as he’d grown a little wary of the lingering glances of the others. He tries to be silent when he thinks of her at night, but doesn’t open himself up to the pain of fantasizing about a life with her. This is one of the few lives where he chooses the safety of a muted, continued affection over the risk of a life lived with abandon.

One early afternoon, John comes to the stables, again in breeches, and Hamilton thinks she is seeking an after supper ride. He starts to dress Reginald, a horse she has taken to, when she stops him with a hand on his wrist.

“Come to the creek with me,” she says, pack in hand, and Hamilton, sensing urgency, nods his assent.

They walk slowly to the creek, none of the urgency of their first journey, and the September sun again warms their bare feet.

Hamilton sets one net, a quick trap, and John follows, but steps immediately into the water, wetting the hem of her breeches.

“Miss,” Hamilton says, with worry, but John waves her hand at him.

“Stop calling me that,” she says.

She faces mostly away from him, heading further west, toward the edge of her father’s property. She splashes and steps in mud, kneeling in it, and Hamilton can’t help but note her recklessness. Mrs. Whitmore will surely scold her for the mud on her clothes, though she won’t be the one who washes them.

When it starts to spit rain, Hamilton knows a storm is coming, and tries to shout for John, who is a hundred yards ahead of him at this point. John continues working, and her hands are covered in mud. Hamilton steps from the bank of the creek and runs toward her, following the jerk in his heart.

When he finally reaches her, she turns around to face him. At first, he thinks the rain must have dotted her skin, but up close, it’s obvious she’s been crying for a while.

“Miss—“

“I told you not to call me that,” she says, but it’s strangled, betraying her deep sadness.

“I don’t know what else to call you,” he says.

“God damn it,” she says, attempting to wipe her face with her hands, but it leaves a streak of mud on her cheek. “You’ve never called me by my name. You’re only doing what you’re told. You have to,” she’s started to speak quickly, more forcefully, “You have to! We make you do that! God damn it. The lord tells us to act justly, to be merciful, to be kind—am I being kind? My family owns you! Owns you! A person! Am I being kind?”

He wants to tell her that he doesn’t know what she means, but he does. He does, so he stays quiet.

“Damn it, Alex,” she says, and takes his hands, looking down at them, joined together. Hamilton thinks that they are not so different: five callused fingers each, two broad palms. “Daddy wants to give you to me. As a wedding present.”

It takes a minute, then settles like a cold weight in his stomach. He’s already chastising himself; he should have seen this coming. He knows enough about the world. He should be used the fact that every joy he has will eventually turn to dust.

Alex swallows. This thing that has been growing between them, the one neither of them have mentioned, begins to cry out inside of him, begging them. What he’s about to say could kill him.

“Do you want me?” he asks. She’s squeezing his hands so tightly. She looks at him, in his eyes for the first time today, and her eyes are amber, almost as yellow at the storm hastening in the sky.

“Not like that,” she says. His hands are shaking, or maybe it’s hers. “Not like a present,” she breathes, a shaky, wet thing, “like a person.”

“Who is it?” he asks, suddenly needing to know, suddenly needing to fight back against this, against the thing that’s taken everything he’s ever loved—his mother, his country, his independence, and now this.

She shakes her head. “You don’t know him,” she says, and there’s a crack in her voice, one that allows her sadness to breach her body and roar to the surface so that she’s crying in full force. “Alex,” she cries out loud. They’re still standing in the creek, the raindrops dotting around their bare ankles. “Alex, I don’t want to. I don’t want to marry him. I can’t,” she pauses and heaves heavy breaths. “I can’t marry anyone else.”

“Oh, my God,” he says, not realizing he’s saying it out loud. Under the cover of the tree canopy, oaks and maple, he releases her muddy hands and pulls her body close to his, their wet clothing allowing him to feel the softness of her breasts, stomach, and thighs against him. She’s still breathing hard when he covers her mouth with his own. The taste of her is warmer and darker than he expected, like something that could pull him down forever if he’s not careful. She hums against his mouth and reaches up to hold his neck, pushing her lips harder against his and Hamilton feels their teeth touch; neither of them have ever done this before. 

Deep in the woods of her father’s property, Hamilton takes John’s hand and leads her from the creek, their bare feet crunching the grass and twigs. John stumbles, but instead of rising, she allows Hamilton to pull her body close to his. They kiss, again, and again, until John is no longer crying, or is out of tears. Her body, near breathless from crying, feels hot and eager under Hamilton’s; he wonders if she’s dreamt of this for as long as he has. It’s been since that day, he thinks, since that day she ascended the ladder and let him know that he was not the only one feeling the acute grief of Cal’s absence.

They’re lying on the ground, and there’s mud on John’s face, on her ear. She says his name, and doesn’t stop. He says hers, and covers her mouth with his, being sure to be attentive to her arms, and her waist, and the damp skin still being rained on.

She reaches for the fastening of his trousers, and Alex stills her hand.

“You don’t,” he begins, and restarts, “You shouldn’t do something you would then regret,” he says, mournful.

“A woman has a right to choose her husband,” John says, and redness covers the tops of her cheeks. “If we do this… I will always know who my husband is. I have to.”

Alex allows her to remove his clothes, and though it is sure that this will end in misery, that they will be caught, and she will be ostracized, and he will be killed, Alex thinks there is nothing he wouldn’t do to have had this: John brings his hands to her own clothing, and Alex thinks that touching the hot, damp skin underneath is like touching grace. The hot bundle of nerves in his chest soothes, finally knowing the calm of touching John, touching her the way he knows he should. 

When her clothes are gone, he touches the warm, velvety inside of her, first with his hands. She is gasping, little moans falling from her body like books from a shelf. His mouth hovers over hers, catching each gasp and sigh. The love he feels for her in this moment is rivalled by nothing; nothing could touch this feeling, as if the two of them have finally come home after a years-long journey. 

“Alex, I need you to do this,” she says, “Please.”

He nods, as if it were ever a question that he would do this for her, cementing the bond they’ve shared forever. He manages to get his trousers around his knees before she pulls him between her naked thighs, embracing him in her freckled arms. 

He looks down, unsure only for a moment, and handles himself so as to breach her. 

“Alex,” she says, and it’s the last thing he comprehends before he can’t understand a thing but the blinding pleasure of her body. She’s tight, and hot, and she’s muffling a tired scream with her arm, throwing the mass of her hair into the dirt under her head. 

He knows he won’t last long, so he attempts to memorize every feeling and sensation as he pistons helplessly inside of her. She’s still making sounds, seemingly unable to stop, and her legs are around him, strong and holding him tightly.

“I love you,” he says, and it feels almost redundant. “I’ve always loved you.”

“Me too,” she says, and the tears are back, something to be kissed away in the moment Hamilton has before his vision is whiting out, and he’s coming inside of her. He knows he shouldn’t, but he does, and John holds onto him with strength, as if holding him tightly enough would ensure the moment never goes away. 

They find their way back to the house, the storm an easy excuse for their absence, and Mrs. Whitmore fusses over her daughter’s appearance, but Hamilton isn’t a close witness, and instead watches from the stables. 

No one is the wiser. To the crowd of the others, and to John’s family, it appears to be a normal jaunt of theirs--even shorter, and they’ve happened to be caught in a storm. Hamilton should be relieved of fear, but something in him longs for acknowledgement. He wishes he’d married John in front of God and society, instead of messily taken her virginity in a quiet green grove of trees. 

Weeks later, John is preparing for her marriage. She hasn’t fought the proceedings of the ceremony, and though Hamilton is unsurprised, he is fighting the small part of himself that pleads for recognition, that cries out in agony at every reminder. Sometimes, John looks at him, but it’s as if she’s looking through him, her mask of passive pain not able to acknowledge him. Alex continues in his duties, and is informed a week later that he is to be transferred to the Larson estate twenty miles east of them, a wedding gift for Mr. Whitmore’s daughter.

As it turns out, Mr. Whitmore’s daughter, John, visits him in early nightfall two months later, clothed in riding breeches and boots, and tells Hamilton to dress in his warmest clothing. A small part of him had hoped and clung to this idea, this fantasy, so he follows willingly, gathering his few possessions and following his lover into the night. 

They don’t get farther than two or three miles. Later, the doctor, having already cremated Hamilton, will set about on the autopsy of the young Miss Whitmore, who was accidentally and fatefully struck by a bullet meant for the now-deceased runaway, Alex. He dares not share his shock with her grieving family: Miss Whitmore died pregnant, about seven or eight weeks along. The family are already hurt and confused that their daughter and their most beloved stablehand would act so irrationally, and on the eve of the girl’s wedding night. No; best to let them believe that it was only Miss Whitmore’s errant adventurousness and soft heart that compelled her to run away alongside Alex. Best to let them believe that he was just her favorite servant; an unfortunate friendship, indeed.


	6. 1838 - 1862: Like a Blessing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the Civil War, John and Alexander meet at a riverbank. They have sex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading, and for your patience. A couple months back I was on a run and fell, breaking all of the fingers in one of my hands. Typing has been difficult, but I think I'm in the clear :). I appreciate you.

September 9th, 1862:

Alexander has been wearing the same wool uniform for two weeks straight. Luckily, he stopped being able to smell body odor about a year ago. Sometimes, he imagines the townsfolk can smell his regiment coming up the road long before they see or hear them; he imagines the housewives and old men covering their noses with handkerchiefs, watching a yellow cloud coming up over the hillsides, damning this war, how it seems to have gone on forever--as long as this summer has been, and somehow longer than that. 

It’s September now, so the days begin blissfully cool, then set to boil around noon. The heat lingers, peaking at midafternoon before settling into the evening like an unwelcome visitor, not truly departing until well after nightfall. It’s made all the worse by the area; the union army has been heading north from Washington D.C. and the swampy, low-lying lands north of the Potomac create a thick, musty atmosphere. The other men of his company jest him for wearing his full jacket, but Hamilton feels naked and childish without it--he’d never had professionally tailored clothing in his life before this, and the jacket feels almost like a bizarre stamp of God’s approval. _Hey, look, you made it!_ Taking it off would create some immeasurable slight against God, so keeping it on feels noble, like he’s enduring a punishment no one else can bear. To the other men, he just claims his Carribbean blood can handle the sun. 

He hadn’t expected to fight in a war. He’d come to America for school, but couldn’t turn down the opportunity for citizenship, a nice salary, food every day. His brother had assumed he was a lunatic, took an apprenticeship with a carpenter back on the islands, and washed his hands of the whole ordeal. 

“You could have kept your job here. You could have stayed,” he’d written, “You could have married and been happy. Perhaps you cannot be happy unless you’re somewhere else, walking into a war which is none of your business.” 

Alexander’s brother didn’t know how wrong he was. He couldn’t marry, for reasons he’d never explain to his brother. He had no explanation for the bewildering absence of concern he had for women--strong, intriguing, beautiful creatures who were nevertheless entirely physically unattractive to Alexander. When he was younger, he would wonder whether any other man in the world felt the way he did about men. What caused his feelings? Was it self-obsession? Some spiritual defect? Was he too close to his mother, mirroring her preferences? 

These thoughts were silenced five years ago, when he was about 16 or 17 years of age. Kept late in his clerk’s office, he wandered a long way home, enjoying the view of the stars and cold night air. He stumbled upon a street obviously occupied by prostitutes, mostly women of varying ages who wore their hair long and had painted faces the likes of which Alexander had never seen in daylight. 

Then, the boys--just two of them, standing along the wall. They were there, and Alexander knew they were not being provided for women. _Those boys are there for men like me_ , he thought suddenly and firmly, and the concept of “Men like me” began to flesh itself out more completely in his head until it seemed obvious when a sailor’s head would turn when he walked by, when a ship’s captain would pay him more attention than usual, lingering by the door, wondering whether he should close and lock it. 

Alexander would sometimes give in to temptation, but it had been a long time since anyone had held his face in their hands, kissed his mouth, or looked into his eyes as he came. The time for that kind of intimacy seemed to be over--the war had made him more serious, more solitary, a man who bakes in a coat in 95 degree weather and believes himself to be noble because of it. 

His boots are beginning to chafe when the company is informed they will bed down within the mile, and they are in luck, because they will bed down along the banks of the Monocacy River. Alexander’s head, already light and swimming, reels at the thought of a fresh, cool water source in which to rinse his stinking clothing and bathe using the precious bar of soap he’s somehow saved since the company had stayed outside of Harrisburg. The shopkeeper’s daughter had pressed it into his hand with a smile, the promises of which seemed more motherly than romantic to Alexander’s tired eyes. The thought of soap, of lather and of clean scent, made the last mile quicker than the others. 

The last two years had brought blister upon blister to Alexander’s skin, until the soles of his feet became thick and leathery. He has no trouble walking in bare feet to the banks where other men are already splashing, traipsing naked in the river, which is more like a creek in which they sit and soak, neck deep along the shallow banks. He smiles as the humid air creates a drop of sweat that threads along his eyebrow until dropping from the tip of his nose, knowing that all of his layers of sweat will wash away in the banks below. 

Alexander has no trouble with missing dinner if it means longer in the quiet of a riverbank, and so he walks until he can no longer hear the laughter of other men. 

Something about the sinking earth allows him to breathe deeper, like the air around the river is supposed to be in his lungs, so it feels something like destiny when he finds a tree whose low and gnarled branches are just convenient enough to hang his clothing on, and a bank of wet, cool silt which rolls slowly into the narrow river. 

He walks slowly but intentionally into the Monocacy before bowing to dip his head, and every pore of his scalp screams with relief when the water touches it. He’s committed himself to soaking what feels like years of salt and soot from himself, closing his eyes and feeling like a stray dog that’s been adopted into a new, loving home. 

He hasn’t even thought of soap when he hears the telltale crunch of twigs under footfalls, but instead of standing out of the river to confront whoever is there, he stays ear deep in the water. Something in him became used to the thought of death years ago and it’s refused to scare him since. If the intruder is a Confederate soldier, he’s already dead. It would be of no use to fear now. 

As it is, the boy is in only his shirt, and he’s looking at Alexander with eyes like fine white china, big fancy saucers like those Alexander has always been too afraid to touch. Alexander, who knows this bit, stands to his feet. The water touches the tops of his hips, and he pretends not to see the stranger as he drifts to the riverbank to retrieve his soap. 

“Sir?” the boy says, and Alexander startles, a bit. The voice has a southern something to it, something that makes Alexander think of the men who would come to his port to inspect African bodies before shipping them to Louisiana or Georgia. If the man in front of him, whose long curls are short at the hairline and coil tightly with humidity, whose skin is freckled like a map of the stars, had ever had anything to do with the savage ills and brutality of the slave trade, Alexander would be surprised. 

“Sir?” Alexander repeats, “I can count on my fingers the number of times I’ve been called ‘sir’, and it’s never been for good fortune,” he says, rubbing the thick bar of soap between his hands. 

“Excuse me,” the boy--no, the man--says, and he’s smiling, and somehow he’s kept his teeth so white. Alexander smiles back. “Would you mind company? You seem to have found quiet and solitude, here.” 

“Indeed, I have,” he says, “though I wouldn’t mind conversation from a man such as yourself.”

“And what kind of man would that be?” the stranger smiles, tilting his head, and Alexander doesn’t have a lot to go on; this could be bad, but he’s never been known for caution. 

“A man as comely as you is welcome in my company in any cool river, on any hot day,” Alexander says, and crouches into the river, dipping his head backward this time to rinse his scorched scalp. When he opens his eyes, the stranger is still standing there, as if he’s just now absorbed what Alexander had said. 

“Ah,” the man says, and for a moment, Alexander is afraid he’s grossly misunderstood. Then he sees the flash of the young man’s naked skin, all shadows and bones thanks to a military diet, for just an instant before he feels a splash and the rippling of water. 

He laughs, and the man does too, seeming to relish the fresh touch of water just as Alexander had. 

“Is that not better than hard tack and warm beer?” Alexander says. 

“Ah,” the stranger agrees, “if only the river could sate my hunger, as well.” 

Alexander laughs and begins to soap his scalp, digging into his long hair, feeling the dirt and sweat lift from him just as his coat had lifted from his shoulders. “If that were the case, I’d be afraid we had already died and were tasting the bliss of heaven hereafter.” _And to look at you, I am already afraid that might be true._

Alexander tries not to stare, but the man, who cannot have breached twenty years of age, is beautiful in a way that makes him ache. Seeing long spans of pale skin that abruptly meet tanned hands is doing something to him that he knows is more important than five minutes in a storage room with a grubby sailor. The stranger has spread out on his back, is staring at the dots of sky that peek through the canopy of broadleaf trees. 

“Are there not days where you long for death?” the stranger asks. There are only faint lines where his smile used to be.

“Of course,” Alexander says, lying. “Though I can usually find something to be thankful for,” he says, rubbing the soap from his arms. He looks at the stranger fondly, who shifts to his feet and squeezes the fresh water out of his curls. 

“Usually, the only thing I’m thankful for is a stiff drink,” he says, honestly. “Have you time for a sip?” 

Alexander laughs, “If there isn’t time for a drink, what are we fighting for?” 

Alexander gratefully receives the flask of his stranger, who smiles and nods as he drinks, as if to say, yes, of course, someone with whom to share my dissatisfaction. 

The two of them rejoice in having found someone with whom to be alone--neither interested in entertaining several others, neither interested in retreating for total solitude. Alexander watches the soap bubbles wash down the river, and in return for sips of liquor, allows the stranger use of his soap. As the sun retreats, the brightness of the stranger’s eyes and teeth grow brighter, until his freckles are a mottled storm upon his skin that Alexander longs to touch. They swim around each other, never touching, until Alexander begins to shiver with the damp coolness of the evening. Something greater is building, burning in his gut, whether it’s alcoholic or something else intangible, unnamed. 

Something about the wetness surrounding his skin, the droplets adorning the stranger’s face, seems appropriate to Alexander. Something about the encroaching darkness of the trees, the shallow banks of the river, tells Alexander that it’s safe here, and pulls him toward the stranger and his round, dark eyes.

The boy, the _man_ , is still holding his empty flask, nursing drops from the spout with his dark tongue, face just breaching the water. He sets it on the bank with the rest of his belongings before launching with his feet to the deepest part of the shallow water.

Alexander, behind him but only just, palms the man’s elbow with one hand. The man, John, looks back at him with eyes like windows at dawn. Alexander’s fingers move quietly to the soft skin cloaking John’s ribs, his other hand finding John’s naked hip. 

He’s looking between John’s face, his parted lips, and where his hand is in the water. John must know, now, what he intends, because his hands reach up to touch Alexander’s shoulders. Alexander feels a soft tremor roll through John’s body and pulls him closer, until a single inch of cool water separates them. The night’s sounds are unencumbered by human voices.

“I--I, uh--” John begins to speak, but as Alexander looks at him in answer, the boy instead moves forward, until their foreheads touch and their noses are side by side. His breath is warm and infused with alcohol, and his eyes are open.

Alexander kisses him. Their bodies are held apart until they’re not; a moan creeps its way up Alexander’s throat as he feels every inch of John’s skin--from his bony feet spread out in the silt of the river, to the rough, curled hair of his calves and thighs, hard knees, firm belly and the warmest part of him, the center of him, pressing ardently to Alexander’s. The water curls around and between them like a blessing. 

He’d never kissed anyone for this long before, and feels cradled by the roundness of John’s lips, the anchor of his teeth, which Alexander licks with abandon as John laughs. He forgets that he’s done this before, forgets most things when John parts from him and looks at him with hooded eyes.

“I can’t.. I don’t know how,” he says, and Alexander knows what he means. He's been hard for over an hour, and John is looking at him like Alexander will finally give him the secret of how to crest this wave, too large and powerful to even see the top. 

Alexander huffs a laugh, “You don’t say that very often, do you?”

John shakes his head. His right hand comes to rest between Alexander’s neck and shoulder.

Alexander says, “You don’t need to know. Come here.”

He pulls at John’s hip, encircling his fingers finally around the warmest part of him, which has managed to stay hard in the cold. John’s eyes close and his head lands on Alexander’s shoulder as he exhales.

“Do you know this part?” Alexander whispers with a smile, and John nods as Alexander begins to pump his first. 

When John’s breathing grows ragged, Alexander stops, and John mewls a protest, then a gasp when Alexander reaches between his legs to stroke the warm, tight skin between the cleft of his ass.

“How about this part?” Alexander asks, still a whisper.

John shakes his head.

“That part can wait,” Alexander says, bringing his hand back to pump John again, slow and firm. “But I want it from you,” he breathes, “Do you want it?”

“I want everything,” John breathes, and Alexander knows he's telling the truth.

Alexander laughs again and picks up the pace of his hand, breathing hard into John’s mouth and watching his eyes clench shut, his teeth close over his perfect bottom lip. His nails are beginning to cut into Alexander’s shoulders when suddenly Alexander feels it: the pulses roll through John; he can feel it in his dick, his heartbeat, can hear the draw of breath through John’s throat that tells him he’s come. 

“That’s right,” Alexander says, feeling the goosebumps rise on John’s shoulders and chest, feeling the water drip from his hair onto Alexander’s skin. “Lean against me, that's right.”

With John breathing in his ear, with the last hour of build-up, it’s only a dozen or so strokes before Alexander is coming into the water, feeling it rush downstream, past their trembling bodies. He’s surprised he’s still standing.

John’s eyes open suddenly, and Alexander’s first response to the boy’s visible shock is to kiss him. 

When they pull apart, John says, “I didn't know--I didn't know… With girls… I couldn’t… I always thought--there was something wrong with me.”

Alexander shakes his head; though he’d always felt some of the same sense of wrongness, he suddenly knows it isn’t true. “No. You’re perfect.”

“Did you mean what you.. Do you want to--”

“Yes,” Alexander breathes. He knows, now, he’s got to keep John at his side. Whatever the circumstances, John will be as a light on the path. He looks at the boy, who's looking at him as if he’s had the same realization. “Where do you camp?”

 

Alexander parts from John reluctantly, knowing it is just hours before dawn. The twigs snapping underfoot as they emerge from the wooded banks fill his heart with a longing he can't place, and it is difficult not to pull rank to immediately order John to his own tent. 

He’d met the boy, who was actually a man of 19, just hours ago but already was making plans for how to keep him close. The fact that he's learned John's placement and rank affords Alexander a vantage point for how to do that. He’ll write out his plans in the morning and send the appropriate letters. He lies down and falls asleep easily, thinking of the damp curls that will darken John’s pillow, the soft breathing that will follow. 

 

Alexander doesn’t mind the heat of midday. He’s walking, but the walk traces the river, allowing an occasional breeze to temper the humid musk of a thousand men walking beside, in front, and behind him. 

He had woken with a cramp in his gut that delivered news of hunger and nerves. He’d skipped dinner the night before to be with John--John. John was here, and real, and wanted him. Since that day, years ago, when he’d discovered men want this thing from one another, he'd felt the touch of dozens of men. John made him feel as if none of them had been real, as if he was a boy of sixteen who'd just discovered how it felt to be wanted: a little frightened, but mostly relieved, and filled with a pungent, strong sense of being not-alone.

Setting camp that afternoon is the quickest thing in the world. Each practiced movement, every knot tied is harried and hasty, an act of anticipation, as if Alexander knows that John could disappear if he doesn't reach him soon. 

He finds John among the mass of soldiers, as if by some magic sense of where to find what is his, something he could describe as destiny were he a romantic. The look on John’s face when he sees Alexander tells Alexander that every feeling he’s felt is returned, no less, and no more. He approaches in a practiced survey of gentility, or authority, or something like it. 

“Private--walk with me,” he says, having no reason prepared, no excuse.

John’s perfect, broad lips twitch in a smile that Alexander won't forget for decades. 

He walks John past his tent--which he shares with no one, a benefit of the rank he’s achieved with relentless, tireless hard work--and asks that John might join him after sundown. A drink, he says. A drink, John agrees. 

They do have a drink. They rid themselves of their shirts once enclosed in the humid, close air of the canvas tent, and John laughs when Alexander pours rum into tin cups. Alexander cannot wait to kiss him again, feels it humming inside of him like a bird that chirps outside of your window until you rise to greet the day. 

They kiss with rum on their lips, and John pulls, unpracticed and eager, at Alexander’s long hair, and Alexander laughs in the darkness. He could kiss his lips and the flushed skin of his face, his freckled chest, all evening but for the wave inside of him cresting again, begging for closeness to a creature he somehow feels so connected to. Alexander breaks their kiss and it feels like the price he’s paying for the supposition, the gall to ask for what comes next.

“Do you--,” he pauses, somehow wordless for all of his experience. “Do you still want…”

“Yes,” John breathes.

John’s warm skin, still warmer than the humid night, trembles as Alexander touches him with oil, strokes him and the tender skin at the bottom of him, where Alexander dreams of being. He’s somehow lost his trousers; Alexander can’t remember taking his off but there they are: naked, together, not even the blessing of the cool water of the river between them. John’s muscled back and legs spread before him like land. The boy, who is a man, is lying on his side, facing away from Alexander because Alexander knows that’s easiest when you’ve never done this before. 

He’s breathing hard, and Alexander knows it hurts, knows there’s nothing to stop it but the knowledge that it will be worth it, that all of the discomfort can mean something great, soon, if you can hold on. His thick index finger is inside of John; the warmth of John’s body is around him but also inside of him, begging him, filling the dark, empty spaces of him.

“More,” he begs, with a slight break, and Alexander knows it’s fast but the boy speaks as if Alexander’s fingers are what he’s been waiting for his whole life. Alexander withdraws, then presses his two fingers inside. John is focused, learning to relax quickly, desperate to be open and filled. 

“Slowly,” Alexander says, more to remind himself. The boy is drawing steady, purposeful breaths through his nose and Alexander thinks faintly that his John, his John whose soul is hot and restless, has been taught how to calm himself down, is the type to have needed that sort of instruction. 

The top of his palm is on John’s bottom now, and he sucks in a breath, knowing that he’s holding John so intimately, that John’s whole body is going to take and hold Alexander just like this. His other hand reaches around John’s strong hip to grasp his cock, and John shudders, mewling and pressing forward into Alex’s hand. 

“My darling,” he says, like John is a woman, like he's his wife and Alexander’s come back from the longest war, longer than this; he’s come home to find the sweet landscape of his lover waiting. “This will hurt,” he says. He’s breathing softly from the skin of John’s neck, inhaling the salt of his sweat and the smell of him. 

“I know,” John nods, and holds Alexander’s wrist. “Please, Alexander, I-- I want this.” 

“I know,” Alexander replies, withdrawing his hand from John’s body. He rubs oil on himself and can hardly believe what he’s about to do, what he’s about to accomplish. 

Alexander gathers himself and tries not to tremble. John is lying on his side, and Alex coaxes his face backward to kiss his forehead, his cheeks, hi wet and waiting mouth. He takes himself in hand, feels the yielding, oiled warmth of John against his cockhead.

“Please, Alexander,” John says again, and Alex steadily pushes forward. 

“Ah!” John’s little cry jolts his heart, and he knows John is feeling the insane pressure of Alexnder just inside of him--the head of him, inside John, screams with it. John is tight and hot around him, and it’s all Alexander can do not to cry with the agony of remaining still. 

John is still breathing hard, and Alexander shushes him lovingly, gives his cock a few strokes and hopes his lover isn’t in pain.

“John,” he says, “John.” He can’t help it as he pushes forward, sighing, pressing his face between John’s quivering shoulder blades. “Darling, you’re so--you’re so tight,” he finally breathes out. “Can I--”

“Yes,” John breathes, and nods violently, and Alexander withdraws before pushing back into John, feeling the slide over his cock and pushing further in this time. His knees are cradled behind John’s, and he can feel John’s jumping pulse, his ragged breathing.

“Thank you,” Alexander says, because it seems like the right thing to say as he pushes further, finally seating himself inside John, pushing and pushing, past rings of muscle, past shields of soft resistance until he's finally feeling John’s ass at his hips, finally. 

John is breathing harsh and fast, and Alexander knows only the satisfaction of having a lover finally inside if him soothes the tremendous pressure. 

“Alexander,” the boy, who is a man, breathes. Alexander leans back go scoop more oil into his fingers. When he withdraws, he applies more to their junction, wanting this to be easy, feel good. 

The oil makes it so easy, and Alexander leans into John's hairline to breathe deep and ravenous. He says John’s name, repeating it gently as he pushes deep into him, nudging comfortably, and every press into John is a press of something hot and dark inside of him, something that chants, _you must have this, always_. John is still and his mouth is wide and open; Alexander thinks that he must be close to drooling, is finally relaxed and open enough to take Alexander and have him whole. Alexander wraps an arm around his broad, warm chest and tucks his face into the curve of his neck, breathing deeply to pick up his scent and hold it; he presses his hips rhythmically into John and feels the motion of him breathing. 

“Oh, this is wonderful,” he breathes with a smile, and Alexander can't help it; a laugh escapes him. John tilts his hand to lay under Alexander’s and the curl of his eyelashes, the water leaking from his eyes as he lie there, overwhelmed; it’s enough to kill him. 

Alexander knows he's close; can feel it building, so he slides a hand from John’s chest to his hip, from his hip to the warmest part of him, hard and red and leaking, and with the remnants of oil still clinging to his fingers, works John steadily, until he's nearly weeping, until he's crying out with so little regard for sound. He works up a rhythm between the motion of his hips and his hand, pushing John into it, listening to the pulse in his neck and the harsh breathing in his own ears. 

“John,” he says, _you perfect godsend_ , he wants to say. “Please, I want to see you,” he says, and John cries out.

Alexander can see the white pulses that shoot from him, the stripes that fall onto his belly, but is thrown over by the feeling of him. He's still so deep in John that he can feel his orgasm: the pulses tighten his muscles around Alexander, and John shrieks with it, has never felt it happen like this. Alexander himself pants, is sweating, breathes fast into the warmth of John's hairline--

“I'm coming, John, I'm going to--,” and he does, feels himself spill heavy and wet, pushes himself deep enough to drown. Pulse after pulse racks him, and he can't stop, he's so deep and dark in it, in John Laurens, and he thinks briefly of the cool water of the stream, how the riverbank had felt more like home than anywhere he'd ever known. 

He clasps John's rib cage and never wants to leave his body as long as he lives. John is breathing, slow, now, and his eyes have shifted closed. One of his hands grasps Alexander's hip behind him.

Alexander knows he can't fight the sweetness that clings to his lips and teeth, something more than rum. He knows he can't fight the sound of john’s breathing, which will creep into the rhythm of his consciousness until he can't imagine living without its steady in, out, in.

Alexander will sleep with John every night for another week. John will follow him and become like Alexander's shadow and Alexander's superiors will assume that Alexander is grooming him for something and John's peers will assume they've lost another to the higher ranks but the two of them will come together in the evenings knowing better, knowing so much better, sharing breath and remembering aloud the moments they first came together, the coolness of the river, the softness of the soap. Alexander will kiss him until he can't breathe and he'll memorize the softness of his skin over the hard sinew of his muscle. Alexander will chant within, I'll keep you, always, always, always, I'll never let you go, I won't let sickness, or gunfire, or war keep me from you. 

But then, Antietam. Alexander will die in one of the bloodiest days of the war, and John won't see it. They'd stayed together for so long, always glancing over a shoulder, always making sure, allowing each other the comfort of a stolen glance. John will know later, and his peers will allow him the comfort of an hour: alone, grieving over the body that won't be sent home to his brother, that will be buried here, in the heat, on the field where he'd known love, and then passion, and then honor. 

John won't recover. He’ll know life, and duty, and cheer, and a bit of camaraderie, but never again the dull, pounding demand of love. He’ll marry, and have a child, and sometimes when the stares of his wife become too much for his battered, several-times-mended heart, he’ll remember a muddy riverbank, the softness of rum on his tongue, the water caressing his body continually, like a blessing, like a lover, like a gift.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, friends.


End file.
